MATE

Progress

The representatives of University La Laguna as a first partner of MATE project started organisation of workshops for teachers as an introduction to MATE project. Ms Lorena Garcia implemented numbers of training hours in order to prepare 27 teachers from 5 schools for initial testing phase of the MATE tool. During the meeting teachers as well as school representatives were informed about the aim of MATE project, the idea of the tool and how it will be implemented in schools during next school year 2018/2019.

Moreover after the initial training and dissemination of the MATE project in Bogota/Columbia around 10 teachers from two big public schools conducted initial testing phase as well with 150 students.

Within January – May period of 2018 experts from Vytautas Magnus University organised series of workshops for teachers and chess trainers in Lithuania as an introduction to implementation of MATE tool in Lithuanian schools. Over 60 teachers and chess trainers interested in the MATE project participated in workshops.

During last 2 months of school year 2017/2018 teachers, interested in MATE project had a chance to participate in the online introduction to the tool and testing cognitive and chess tests with their students.

MATE Consortium invites schools, teachers and chess trainers to participate in the testing of the tool on which the team from Poland, Spain and Lithuania is working.

Benefits for schools and teachers:

What is more participation in the MATE project gives many possibilities for teachers: support in conducting classes using the on-line tool as well as teachers’ support in the process of professional development. Therefore, teachers participating in the project have the opportunity to cooperate with international experts in developing scenarios of subject activities that will include chess and cognitive trainings.

This cooperation will be confirmed by an appropriate certificate of participation in substantive work and the developed scenarios will be implemented by teachers from partner countries: Poland, Spain and Lithuania.

Teachers interested in increasing their activity, international cooperation, development and co-creation of didactic materials, please contact project team.

Nicholas Carr talks about shallow mind in the cypher era; Manfred Spitzer pays attention to the Digitale Demenz. These are the real challenges in a modern cognitive psychology.

I have been developing a method of broadening and deepening our thinking processes for years – by controlling the nine important indicators (see for example Jan Przewoźnik: Myśl – Działaj – Zwyciężaj! Psychologia szachów w praktyce. Gorzów Wielkopolski 2003, 2011). The method is based on Adriaan de Groot’s methodology (Adriaan de Groot: Thought and Choice in Chess. The Hague 1965).

When you decide what to do in A VERY IMPORTANT SITUATION you may ask yourself some adequate questions, for example:

M – The total number of all „moves” considered in the decision tree: How much data do I have? How much data do I need?

N – The number of successive fresh starts in decision tree („branches” in decision tree): How do I find out how much data I have left?

A – The number of different options considered: Do I really explore the situation and problem broadly enough? Did I define the problem too narrowly? Did I define the problem too broadly?

Dmax – The longest variation (how far the subject is able to foresee consequences): Did I predict the consequences far enough? How far am I able to foresee the possible consequences?

nn – The number of successive changes in solving options: Is my process of thinking structured in a good order?

Pmax – The reinvestigations of the option which was mostly considered (Pmax): Am I able to concentrate enough on the best option?

Pser – The longest immediate reinvestigations of the option (it’s the measure of concentration): Am I able to concentrate enough on one option at one moment?

W – The value of the option being chosen: How much is my solution worth?

T – The thinking time: How much was my solving time really worth?

And do not choose your wife or husband with the method, please. Follow your heart.

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The skill of counting variations is one basis in chess development. Another one is looking for “chunks”.

The international Erasmus + KA2 project "Multidimensional Analytical Training in Education" (MATE), where scientists of the Faculty of Informatics (Vytautas Magnus University), together with neuroscientists, psychologists and educators from the University of Economics and Innovation (Poland), the University of Laguna (Spain) and the University of Alicante (Spain) investigate how the chess play effects to the children learning and cognitive development, was presented to Lithuanian educators. The presentation was done by dr. J. Kasperiuniene at the plenary session.

Participants of the discussion forum "Advancement and Innovation in Education: How It Promotes Successful Learning", organized by the Faculty of Social Sciences (Vytautas Magnus University ) were interested in virtual and augmented reality-based solutions in education, human-computer interfaces, and the social impact of the breaking innovations. More than 150 teachers from all around the Lithuania took part in Forum discussions. In this Forum, representatives of the Department of General Education of the Ministry of Education and Science, Republic Lithuania, presented the measures of the state program. Teachers and experts in general education shared their experiences. Forum participants discussed innovations in the educational process.

From school year 2017/2018 in forty Lithuanian schools all around the country (Telsiai, Jonava, Utena, Siauliai, Alytus, Panevezys, Rokiskis, Vilnius, Kaunas and other regions) pupil start learning chess play in formal classes. This is a start of the new pilot project implemented by the Lithuanian Chess Federation ttp://www.chessfed.lt/ together with publishing house "Šviesa" http://www.sviesa.lt/ . This initiative is a part of the project called "Chess in schools" what is very popular in other EU countries.

On 18.11.2017, Dr. Monika Baryła-Matejczuk, an expert in MATE project and Magda Janiak - coordinator of the project, took part in the 13th Chess Championship of Chełm District, organized in the Public Primary School in Bialopole.

The tournament began with a presentation MATE: "Multidimensional Analytical Training in Education” with the aim to present project aims, products and plan for cooperation with schools, teachers, chess trainers as well as young chess players within testing and implementing the MATE tool.

The organizers of the tournament were representatives of sport clubs, public school and local/regional administration: Sport Club "Astra" Leśniowice, District Office in Chełm, Leśniowice Commune, Białopole Commune, Communal Culture Center in Bialopole.

There were 48 competitors from Poland and Ukraine participating in the tournament.

The competition was held in the Swiss order: 7 rounds with a 15 minute per participant within categories: junior up to 12 years, juniors and juniors under 18, open and the best woman. Mr Edward Chowra was the chess arbiter of the tournament.

The ALTA conference aimed to be an opportunity to gather European educational actors, from policy makers to practitioners to researchers. At ALTA’2017 scholars from many EU countries presented their research, projects and discussed their experiences in the field of e-Learning methodologies, educational projects, innovations and new technologies applied to education and research. More than 150 scholars and practitioners, teachers and educators from Lithuania and other EU countries took participated and shared their research at conference plenary and workshop sessions.

On the 16th of November 2017 J. Kasperiuniene from Vytautas Magnus University presented MATE project at international scientific-practical conference ALTA2017 “Advanced learning technologies. Smart education” live and poster sessions. Conference participants were interested in serious game application to primary school education, virtual and augmented reality solutions. They were interested how the project results would be implemented to formal school education.

On September 2017 experts from University of La Laguna presented MATE project to Adriana Salazar which is an expert of chess at school in Bogota, Columbia.

Ms Salazar have been working in a chess at school program in Bogota for at least 10 years with nice results. The result of this meeting is the cooperation agreement and participation of Ms Adriana Salazar and children from 8 to 11 years with different level of chess from Bogota in testing phase of MATE online tool.

WSEI as the leader of this part of the work has prepared 500 chess and cognitive stimuli. In the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology WSEI is continuing research involving children 10-13 to select the most effective chess and cognitive stimuli. Currently about 30 children are involved in the study. Chess stimuli are based on tasks such as finding a mate in one go, finding winning combinations, and so on.

During research, data from EEG and Eye-Tracker data is collected from children who perform a variety of tasks. Participation in research is only possible after informed consent of the legal guardian. The results will help you choose the most optimal and best tasks for the final version of the online tool.

Disclaimer

This project has been funded with the support from the European Commission (project no: : 2016-1-PL01-KA201-026365). This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.